Marijuana Washes Ashore at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea; Beachgoers Miss Chance to Get Rich

"SEA WEED." That was Channel 7's heading for the news of a beachside discovery of 50 pounds of pot over the weekend at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. This is as close as South Florida gets to a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow -- clandestine traffic by drug runners on boats leaves behind a wake of ditched or misplaced packages.

Fietie Knoop, Ron Sandry, and Eleanor Boundreau, the beach visitors who discovered the stash wrapped tightly in plastic bags and covered in barnacles, elected to call police rather than call finders, keepers. "It smelled awful," said Knoop to television cameras.

The package was covered in

barnacles and looked like it had been floating around for a while. If the weed had stayed dry, it would have netted $50,000 on the street.

The topic of offshore pot brings us to a recent Rolling Stone interview with comedian Bill Maher in which he insists that his enthusiastic use of the drug is limited to situations when he's at least 12 miles offshore, to keep things legal:

You love pot.

Come on. You know I gave that shit up when I got saved... [Laughs]

When you're out on the road, doing standup in Oklahoma City, how do you avoid... Willie Nelson problems?

I have only ever smoked marijuana 12 miles off the coast of the United States -- that's where it is legal. I learned that from William F. Buckley. I put a video up on FunnyorDie about a month or so ago called 12 Mile. I interviewed Sarah Silverman, and we had the ocean on a green screen, sailors' caps -- like we were on a boat. That was my subtle way of saying we were both very stoned in that interview -- but we were 12 miles off the coast, so it is legal.

So what do you smoke -- medical marijuana?

I only smoke what floats up there 12 miles off the coast! It's lucky that there's so much intercepted marijuana coming in from Mexico that it is floating out there in the ocean, but beggars can't be choosers.

Here's the kicker: "Officials are conducting lab tests on the marijuana, and they will burn it afterward." Yep, that's for sure.